


Sunday in the Six Day War

by thief_of_eddis



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: "My Dear", 6000 Years of Pining, Falling In Love, Good Omens Crowley Aziraphale, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots, M/M, Through the Years, Truly Ridiculously Sappy Idiots, over time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 12:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20639036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thief_of_eddis/pseuds/thief_of_eddis
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale falling deeper in love with every passing slice of history. Episodes from the Flood to the present day.





	Sunday in the Six Day War

**MESOPOTAMIA—3004 B.C.**

“I don’t like it,” Crowley muttered. He was perched on an outcropping of the highest available mountain, knees to his chest. The water had covered all the lowlands now, and many of the smaller hills were succumbing quickly.

Yes, he’d picked this spot because it was practical, but if he was being honest, he couldn’t actually bear to be near enough to see the tiny dark specks of humanity disappearing into the swell.

He’d never meant to fall, never hated the Almighty. But oh, how he wished he could understand why ‘good’ and ‘right’ could do such awful things.

“Oh, _there_ you are.”

Aziraphale appeared at the edge of the cliff, wings unfurled and gathered about his shoulders.

Crowley blinked up at him. “What, couldn’t find another mountain?”

“What? Oh, well. I was looking for you.”

Crowley watched the angel shake the damp from his wings and, somewhat sheepishly, he offered one to Crowley. The demon flinched, shaking his head. It didn’t seem right to be out of the rain, when the mortals were down there dying from it.

Wordlessly, Aziraphale tucked his wings out of sight, then lowered himself to the rocks beside Crowley. He’d put much of his time in heaven out of his mind, but one thing he remembered was that angels had very little concept of personal space.

The rain was incessant. Crowley was already soaked, but Aziraphale sat beside him in silence until he was equally so.

“I don’t understand,” thought Crowley, and it took a moment to realize that his thought had materialized aloud on the angel’s lips. He turned.

“Sort of what _ineffable_ means, isn’t it?” the demon asked.

“Yes, but that doesn’t make it any easier,” Aziraphale pointed out. He looked different than Crowley had yet seen him; his light seemed diminished, his solid effervescence quelled.

“It’s all bigger than us, I suppose. And _much_ bigger than them,” Crowley added, wincing down at what he shouldn’t be able to see from this height. “I just hope it isn’t big enough to squash us all before we get the chance to—”

Aziraphale was looking at him, hanging on the end of a sentence Crowley could only bring himself to end with “—do something.”

The silence passed between them again, covering them like the chill creeping into their damp skin.

“It seems so easy in theory, to tell if something’s good or evil,” Aziraphale murmured. “But then, when something evil comes out of good intent, or the reverse, it all seems a bit…blurry.” The angel shivered. “I don’t like blurry. I want to know I’m doing the right thing, but I don’t think I’ll be able to go on long without having…” he glanced skyward, lowering his voice, “doubts, questions…anger, even.” He shut his eyes, and Crowley realized the wetness on his face was not only the rain.

“Hey now, angel. Don’t cry,” he said, rather hypocritically (the trick was to scowl while you did it, nobody ever caught on). Unsure why, he laid a hand on the angel’s arm.

“Maybe it’s not about never having doubts, anyway. Maybe it’s about promising to keep wrestling with them best you can, and not give up.”

His own words stung on his tongue, and Aziraphale’s clear eyes were boring straight into his soul.

“You haven’t given up either, have you?” the angel asked at last. Crowley squirmed under his gaze. “They shouldn’t have cast you out at all. You’re not like the rest, you _haven’t_ given up.”

Crowley made a bitter noise that might have passed for a laugh. “Yes, well. Wrong place, wrong time. My point is, if you go by the Almighty’s book, you don’t have to give up every time you’re not perfect—and you’re an angel, after all. You’re as close as it gets to perfect, anyway.”

Aziraphale beamed at him, blushing, and all at once his glowing sureness seemed returned. Crowley felt something odd squirm in his chest.

“You’re very kind, you know.”

Crowley winced theatrically. “Don’t go letting on.”

Aziraphale’s smile quirked to one side. “I won’t tell a soul.” He dropped his gaze to where Crowley’s hand still rested on his arm. Before he could snatch it away, the angel tucked his own fingers under it, and to Crowley’s horror he lifted it to his lips and kissed the tips of his fingers.

Or maybe it wasn’t horror, exactly. More like abject shock. Or surprise. Maybe he didn’t hate it. And maybe he did have a heart, because _something_ was hammering away in his ears.

“That how they say thank you in heaven these days?” he asked, breathlessly. He took a moment to be puzzled by the sensation (he’d never _needed_ to breathe before).

Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled, his hand still twined in Crowley’s. “Not really, no.”

**ROME—41 A.D.**

The thing about oysters is…well. There are _several_ things about oysters. One is that they are especially delicious when consumed in the company of a friend, alongside copious amounts of wine. Another is that oysters, much _like_ wine, have a distinct and dizzying effect on the body.

Crowley was giggling, _actually_ giggling, and Aziraphale drank in the demon’s joy. He hadn’t quite been the same since—well. Since Christ died. Crowley had been fond of him, fonder than a demon ought to have been, but then again, Crowley had never been _just_ a demon. And to see him happy again; there wasn’t a better sight Aziraphale could think of. At his core, Crowley was good. A right pain in the ass sometimes, but incredibly gentle. And really quite nice to look at, when the angel caught himself paying attention.

Also, he was an impeccably, gloriously stupid drunk.

“Where the heaven are we?” Crowley wondered, stretching languidly in his chair. His tunic hung quite loose around his shoulders (due to wine or oyster, Aziraphale wasn’t sure). He felt in no hurry to intervene (due, probably, to both).

“The restaurant, my dear, remember? You asked not an hour ago!”

“Then whyzzit upside down?”

Aziraphale nearly tipped his chair over with laughter. “We should, oh _dear_, it _is_ upside down, isn’t it?”

“What’dItellyou,” Crowley slurred, gesticulating broadly and knocking a newly-empty bottle off their table. It shattered with enough fanfare to turn several heads, and suddenly the barkeep was storming their way with murder in his eyes.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, sitting up.

“What can I do you for, daaaaahling?” His ridiculous spectacles had slipped down his nose, and his snake eyes blazed inhumanly. The barkeep reached out a menacing hand to grip Crowley’s shoulder—

—but Aziraphale was quicker. In a sharp flurry of miraculous energy, they were deposited into a conveniently empty room on the opposite side of the inn. Specifically, onto a particular item of furniture in said room. Aziraphale hadn’t remembered adding that little detail to his miracle, and his ears went an alarming shade of red.

“Holy shhhhhhhiiiit,” Crowley hissed, “that bastard was about to—oh. Oh, _well_.” The demon’s lips twisted into a vicious smile as he took in their surroundings, landing on Aziraphale’s disgruntled form above him.

“Taking me to _bed_, are we angel? I’d say you should have bought me dinner first, but in fact, you did.”

Aziraphale shuddered, willing the effects of their supper to cease their hold on his mind and, for that matter, the _rest_ of him. “This, uh, that is…this was not precisely my intention.”

Crowley, utterly gone for this world, had the nerve to lick his lips. “Is it _now_?”

Aziraphale could have sworn his heart had stopped, were it not painfully obvious that his blood circulation was working just fine. Crowley smirked up at him, took a long finger and dragged it down the length of his chest.

In a surge of uncontrollable affection, Aziraphale kissed him. The demon’s lips were warm and tugged at his own, pulling his entire being into a magnetic embrace. Crowley growled, a sound deep in the back of his throat that sent a chill down the angel’s spine.

Eyes wide, the angel took in the pressure of Crowley’s fingers digging into him, the gentle desperation of his eyes, the hitch of slipping control in his breath.

“Aziraphale,” escaped his lips.

The edges of his jawline, the generous dip of his collar, his eyes, _his eyes_—all things Aziraphale had watched fondly for centuries now burned as though edged in flame. All at once, Aziraphale felt the unfamiliar sensation of requiring air. He pulled back just enough, gasping.

“Oh _goodness_ gracious.”

“Well…” Crowley mused, making a pronounced sweep of his gaze down the angel’s body. Aziraphale opened and shut his mouth rapidly.

“What…?”

Crowley shrugged. “Want to try it?”

The angel blinked at him, looking ridiculously owl-like. “What? _That_?”

Another shrug.

“But we don’t _need_ to.”

“No,” Crowley agreed.

“It’s completely unnecessary to either of our existences.”

“Completely.”

“Plus, you know, with _us_.”

“What with us?”

“You know. Angel, demon…”

“Meh…”

“Probably explode…”

“Mhm…”

“And who knows what would happen on the ethereal plane…heaven and hell could _find out_!”

“Yep,” Crowley mused. In a fluid motion, Crowley took Aziraphale by the hip and flipped him on his back, producing a fantastically hilarious noise of surprise.

Leaning down toward the angel’s ear, he whispered: “Want to do it anyway?”

Aziraphale shuddered. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s just a question.”

Aziraphale’s answer, in the end, was another helplessly impassioned kiss.

**THE KINGDOM OF WESSEX—537 A.D.**

The Knights of the Round Table were accustomed to keeping an eye on strangers during the king’s courtly celebrations. What was less normal was for one of them to be hauled into a darkened room by such a stranger and shoved against a wall.

Actually, that happened quite a lot. But in this case, the knight in question was an angel in disguise, and the stranger was, to put it lightly, a dramatic little shit.

“What are you doing here?” Aziraphale demanded. “If Arthur sees you—if _anyone_ sees you, you’ll be killed!”

“Discorporated,” Crowley corrected, still holding fistfuls of the angel’s shirtfront. It was ridiculously ornate, all done up with a line of pewter buttons that Crowley took not-so-subtle inventory of.

Aziraphale dragged his own eyes down the demon’s form. Everything was black, of course, with lots of tassels and glittery bits and not _nearly_ enough fabric above the clavicle to be decent. “Was the cape _really_ necessary?”

Crowley grinned. “You like it.”

Aziraphale cleared his throat, to distract from the fact that he _did_. “What do you want?” he asked, doing his best to sound businesslike.

“I thought maybe we could talk further about a potential…arrangement.” Crowley raised a saucy eyebrow, taking care to press with both his hips and his hands. He could give him space, but he wasn’t feeling charitable.

The noise that escaped between Aziraphale’s teeth betrayed that he’d been holding his breath. “I told you, I’m not interested. It won’t _work_.”

“Oh, come on. Have a little faith, angel. It doesn’t really count as me tempting you if we come to a mutual agreement. I do a little blessing, you do a little tempting…”

Aziraphale made firm eye contact with him. “Fuck. You.” he enunciated.

Crowley grinned, leaning several meaningful inches closer. “Ask me nicely,” he whispered, letting his lips drag generously across the angel’s ear as he did. The sound he made was both involuntary and indecent. Crowley planted a shadow of a kiss at the base of his jaw, feeling him shudder.

“Oh good _lord_, not now,” Aziraphale groaned.

Crowley let go of his shirt, freeing his hand to trace a line down the front of Aziraphale’s throat. The angel worked his face into a disapproving frown, clearly a front. When he reached his collar, Crowley slipped the first button open.

“Not now?” he asked, still whispering and still too close. Aziraphale shut his eyes.

“You’re out of line,” he murmured.

“And you should wear a necktie. It’d suit you, actually,” Crowley returned, planting his palm on the angel’s chest. The warmth of his skin exploded through his fingers, and the angel made a sharp noise in the back of his throat. His head fell back, and Crowley took it as an invitation to drag his teeth along his throat.

“You _fiend_, you absolute _idiot_, oh my…_God_.”

“Should I stop?”

“I _will_ kill you.”

The demon smirked up at him, yellow eyes alight with mischief. “If I stop?”

“If you stop,” he panted, and Crowley found himself hauled into an unnecessarily forceful kiss. Aziraphale’s lips were cold, always cold. That Crowley had managed to collect enough data over the centuries to determine this trend was still a bit of a blur.

He pressed Aziraphale’s waist against a fancy oak credenza, and he took the hint. He was on his toes, and then Crowley was shoving him backward, and then his legs were hooked around his hips.

Someone jiggled the door handle, and Crowley cursed the lock shut with a snap of his fingers.

“If they find you in here, you’ll start a war,” Aziraphale panted, raising an eyebrow toward the door.

“I just might,” said Crowley. In one quick motion, he jerked the angel’s arms above his head and pinned them against the wall.

“Oh, _God_ in heaven…”

“You keep talking, she might show up. And that,” Crowley chided “Would be awkward.”

He traced Aziraphale’s lips with his tongue, then tugged the lower one between his teeth. Mouth gave way to neck and to shoulders and to chest under Crowley’s lips. He kept sinking down, finally pausing over the lavish buckle of Aziraphale’s belt.

“Tonight’s a good night for a war, don’t you think?” he asked from his knees.

“Oh _God_.” It became necessary to repeat the sentiment _several_ more times before the demon came up for air. (She did not, mercifully, show up).

**THE GLOBE THEATER, LONDON—1601**

The theater was dark, and all of the playgoers had gone. All but two, that is, who were presently creeping around backstage.

“This is a bad idea,” Aziraphale whispered, nonetheless following Crowley into room after room full of props and costumes. “What if William comes back to check on things?”

“_William_,” Crowley lilted, placing a large-brimmed hat on his head, “is somewhere drunk off his ass, and the whole place is locked up. Besides, you said you wanted to see how it all works.”

Aziraphale tutted, scooping the hat off of Crowley’s head and adjusting it so it would sit properly. “This seems more your style, slinking about at night.”

“Only when I’m coming to see you,” Crowley insisted, leaning down to touch the angel’s nose with his own. The feather in the hat’s brim tickled Aziraphale’s cheek, and he smiled through the darkness.

Crowley went to kiss him, but the angel laid a finger on his lips.

“I wanted to tell you something,” he whispered.

Crowley smiled into the angel’s touch. “What’s that, angel?”

The angel in question rather pointedly drug his finger from Crowley’s lips, down to his chin.

“This,” Aziraphale said, “is _atrocious_.”

Crowley’s jaw dropped in mock chagrin. “What, you don’t like it? I thought it was very true to period.”

“I won’t kiss you while you’ve got a dead mouse affixed to your face,” the angel said, all sass coated in sugar.

Crowley snapped his fingers, and the offending article vanished.

“How about now?” he growled, tugging the angel close.

“Much better.”

Aziraphale opened his lips into Crowley’s, and the demon couldn’t help but reflect that over centuries of debauchery, the angel had gotten quite good with his tongue. He wasn’t sure whether to feel guilty or take credit, but a little of both seemed to do for the moment.

Crowley backed away teasingly, slouching backward onto a lavish prop couch. He slung one leg up over the back of it, taunting the angel with his eyes.

“How does that line go?” he asked, snaking a hand lazily up his thigh. ‘Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry…’ ”

“Oh _do_ stop!” Aziraphale physically covered his face with his hand.

Crowley sat up and snatched his other hand, pulling them back down together.

“You’re terrible,” Aziraphale hissed, even as he let Crowley disrobe him.

“Well, _you’re_ lovely,” Crowley said innocently, tossing the angel’s shirt somewhere into the mess of costumes behind him. “I’d very much like to do something about it.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Oh, but darling, that’s the idea.”

He kissed the angel until their lips were raw and touched him until they melted into one.

~*~

The gaps in the stage floor let in slivers of moonlight, and Crowley stroked the place where it fell across the angel’s fair hair. “I like more than _just_ the funny ones, really.”

“As long as you don’t quote them for your debased purposes, you fiend,” Aziraphale chided, which seemed especially hypocritical in his present state of undress. One hand still clutched at the demon’s hip, while the other traced lazy circles on his chest.

“Hmm, let me think…”

“Oh, here we go,” Aziraphale muttered, but he was smiling into his neck. Crowley could feel him breathing softly, and it was making his heart to uncomfortable things.

Crowley placed a kiss amidst his curls, and the quiet settled around them as the angel lay still on his chest. Pushing several of Shakespeare’s lewder lines aside, he cleared his throat.

“ ‘I would not wish any companion in the world but you, nor can imagination form a shape, besides yourself, to like of.’ ”

Aziraphale gasped softly. “Oh, my dear.”

“The one that’s from one wasn’t funny _or_ gloomy, really. I always thought—are you _tearing up_ angel? What the heaven for?”

“Nothing, dear! It was just…it was beautiful, is all. It was sweet of you to say.”

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “I am _never_ sweet.”

“Liar,” Aziraphale murmured around another kiss.

“Will you _stop_ _crying_, you’re _not_ _dressed_!” Crowley insisted, and the angel burst into laughter.

**PARIS—1793**

In Aziraphale’s very limited defense, the crepes here _were_ delicious. Crowley watched the angel make obscene faces as he savored each bite, enjoying this process easily as much as the actual food. He was sitting close enough for their knees to touch, which might have been scandalous if the population hadn’t bigger things to worry about, with a revolution going on. That and, well, it was _Paris_, after all.

Licking the last bit of powdered sugar from his fork, the angel gave a contented sigh that ended with a decorously enunciated: “_Fuck_.”

This delighted Crowley to an extent that was hardly appropriate.

“That,” he said, grinning evilly and (paradoxically) touching his nose to the angel’s at the same time, “makes _four_.”

Aziraphale’s expression went from confused to aghast. “You are _not_ keeping track.”

“Somebody’s got to count them. You haven’t submitted profanity records to On High since the dark ages.”

“Oh, _rude_,” Aziraphale chided. Crowley magicked away his cravat in reply, a recurring joke that Crowley was never prepared to make his heart stop, but it always did.

“Fancy me being the primary cause of an angel cursing,” Crowley preened, attempting to ignore the angel’s shirtfront. “Only three times in all our storied history—”

“Oh _do_ shut up.”

“—and the first time barely counted, anyway.”

Aziraphale looked sufficiently flustered as to write himself an incident report then and there (whether the headline would be “Unholy Language” or “Repeated Osculation with The Enemy” was yet to be determined).

“When was the first time?” he wondered aloud.

Crowley winced. “1346.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “What _is_ the trouble with you and the 14th century? Plenty of good things went on!”

“Yes yes, like that Charles-something you appointed to HRE.Jolly ray of sunshine. _Anyway_, while you were busy bringing about the golden age of Bohemia—”

“You were starting the Hundred Years War,” Aziraphale finished. The look of belated disapproval he was giving Crowley could only be described as endearing.

Crowley stretched his languid shoulders into a shrug. “You were _not_ pleased when you showed up for brioche and found a military invasion instead.”

Aziraphale pouted. “That was one of your worst.”

“Goes with the job, love.” Crowley used the term casually (and often condescendingly) on a daily basis, but it felt like a weighty admission just now. A ticking time bomb on his tongue. Aziraphale sensed the hum in the air, and swallowed.

“And the second time?”

Crowley grinned lasciviously. “Surely you remember _that_ night, Sir Aziraphale of the Table Round.”

Aziraphale _somehow_ paled and blushed at once, and _somehow_ it was alarmingly attractive. “Not at brunch, dear!”

Crowley laughed, letting a pause slip in. When Aziraphale didn’t press him further, he offered, in a quiet voice: “The third time was the opera.”

Aziraphale’s eyes lit up at once. “You don’t mean Purcell?”

“How many operas have I let you drag me to?”

His eyes twinkled. “Just the one. So far.”

“Anyway, there was a big number…crescendo, screamy glass shattering thing, whatever.”

“An aria,” Aziraphale said gently.

“As I said. I suppose it was impressive, I was busy plugging my ears. And you were sitting with…” His eyes darted back to the angel’s shirtfront, hanging slack around his neck, and then quickly away.

“And I what?” he asked.

Crowley sniffed. His sunglasses had slipped low on his nose, and he tilted them back into place. “S’nothing. You were enjoying yourself.”

Aziraphale frowned. “And?”

Crowley shook his head. “Hmm?”

He reached for the demon’s face, only to pluck off his glasses and toss them across the table with a playful flourish. Crowley’s throat went dry.

“Come now,” Aziraphale said, with that hesitant little smile that made Crowley want to break something. “I want to know.” The tips of his fingers glanced across the demon’s shoulder, and Crowley relented.

“Your cravat caught fire, do you remember? We had a box with nice scotch and little candles, and one of them went amiss.”

“Oh _dear_,” the angel said, sounding freshly perturbed at the loss.

“Still not sure why you didn’t just magic yourself a new one,” Crowley smiled sideways at him. “Probably have Purcell to thank for rendering you senseless with his noise.”

“Thank?” the angel asked, refusing to acknowledge his operatic dis.

“You were bloody enthralled, angel. I’d never seen you so happy. All sprawled back with your arms dangling off your stupid chair, and your top two stupid buttons undone, and this…this _look_ on your face, like you were listening to the actual voice of the Almighty. _And_ you liked it so much, you swore out loud. Even better.”

Aziraphale’s eyes dropped, as though it would counter the color rising to his cheeks. “And you were watching me?” he concluded.

Crowley made a noise of disagreement. “I was _looking_ at you. There’s a difference.”

Aziraphale’s blush deepened. “I’ve come to think you do that quite a lot.”

“Noticed have you?” the demon quipped. “S’only taken a few thousand years.”

“_Crowley_.” The two of them smiled, but this time the familiar look of fondness that passed between them caught in Crowley’s eyes and stayed.

“It’s been you and I since the beginning, angel. Just us on this ridiculous little world. You’ve got to have figured out how important that makes you.”

Aziraphale smiled shyly. “There are lots of important angels.”

“Important to _me_,” he clarified, then added “idiot” when Aziraphale had the nerve to look surprised. “Loads of angels, sure; all of them boring, most of them daft—”

“Crowley…”

“—they’re no better than the lot below! Supposed to be doing good, are they? Well they ought to take notice.”

“Notice of _what_, my dear?”

“That you’re the best of the lot!” Crowley snapped. “You’re what _kindness _looks like, you daft bastard. You _care_, more about people than about the rules. _That’s_ what an angel’s supposed to be like. That uppity lot, they’ve got no idea what it means to _actually_ make a difference in someone’s life. To convince them they matter.”

Aziraphale’s smile was ever so modest. Crowley wanted to smack him.

“I do like to think I’m decent at it, I suppose.”

“Well, if you can convince even a demon that he’s worth knowing, you can do anything you want.” The silence that followed was electric, and electricity hadn’t even been invented yet.

Aziraphale stared at him, brows furrowed. “You _are_ worth knowing! That isn’t _my_ doing, that’s just _you_.”

Crowley gave an ostentatious sneer. “Oh, I don’t know.” Then, with a surge of demonic pride: “Left to my own devices I really am a sick, twisted, evil—”

“Gentle, considerate, thoughtful, _lovely_ person.” Crowley shot him a halfhearted pout, endeavoring not to focus on the troublesome warmth spreading through his chest.

“You’re biased because we’re friends.”

The angel smiled at him. “And friends we shall stay.”

**SOHO, LONDON—1967**

Crowley sat in silence for a moment, tilting the thermos in his hands. The Bentley, which always felt like home, only ever seemed lonely when the angel had recently left it.

_After everything you said…_

He tucked the Holy Water gingerly inside the glove compartment and leapt out of the car.

“Aziraphale!” he shouted down the road. The familiar figure turned, all but out of sight.

Crowley’s sharp footfalls echoed along the pavement, his flashy blazer glittering in the artificial light, and Aziraphale’s heart caught in his throat. The lights from the theater cast a rainbow of colors across the demon’s glasses.

“Talk to me,” Crowley implored. Twenty-odd years of barely any contact since the blitz, and Crowley couldn’t stand to watch him go again. “Why too fast? How do I fix it?”

The angel’s face was troubled. “You’ll hurt yourself with that water, I just _know_ you will! And I can’t bear to think of it, that it will have been _my_ fault—”

Crowley took him by the shoulders. “Angel, that’s _not_ going to happen. I’ll be careful.”

“I can’t lose you, Crowley!” he cried out.

It was so rare for the angel to raise his voice, and Crowley felt sickly responsible. He wrapped his arms around him, gentle but firm.

“I’m not going anywhere, angel. Promise you.”

Aziraphale’s voice broke against his shoulder. “You’re all I have.”

Crowley fought the lump in his throat, nuzzling his cheek into the angel’s hair. “And you’re all I want. Come on, angel, don’t cry.”

What seemed like hours passed until Aziraphale pulled back, just enough to look him in the eye. “You saved my books. In the blitz.”

“Meh,” Crowley said, but his eyes said, ‘you noticed.’

“Have you any idea,” Aziraphale asked, his eyes as baffling as always, “what that meant to me? Have you _any_ idea?”

“Well,” said Crowley, sniffing back what most certainly were _not_ tears, “I figured if I was already saving your ass, I might as well save you the books.”

“That wasn’t why, and we both know it.” He traced the outline of Crowley’s face with a gentle finger. “You did it just to make me happy. Just because you cared.”

Crowley looked at him for a long moment, finally letting a smile creep onto his lips. “Don’t go letting on.”

The angel felt admissions clawing their way out of his throat, and there was no point in turning back now.

“I love you,” Aziraphale said. The London traffic seemed to slow.

Every carefully-curated emotion died on Crowley’s face, leaving only himself. And himself, at the moment, looked something like shock.

“Oh.”

Aziraphale smiled softly, reveling in the rare moment of rendering him silent. “You are the dearest thing to me in all the world, and beyond it. How could I help but love you?”

“Oh.”

“Darling, _really_. You must have known by now.”

Crowley made a pinched sort of sound, and shook his head.

“Oh, my dear, of _course_ I love you.” He reached for Crowley and brought their foreheads together gently. Crowley felt his head spinning, his throat going dry.

“Are you…are you sure you want to?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale melted into a helpless smile. “Too late.”

Crowley raised the angel’s hand to his lips, and kissed his fingertips. His heart had never been more full.

**BATTERSEA PARK—Present Day**

Crowley could barely process his own footfalls crunching on the gravel path, leading him away from Aziraphale’s words.

_We’re not friends._

_There is no ‘our’ side._

_It’s over_. _It’s over_. _It’s over_.

His pulse hammered in his ears.

“Have a nice doomsday!” he threw over his shoulder. He needed an excuse, anything, to look back at the angel one more time, to see if he was changing his mind.

Crowley couldn’t see his face, but the other signs were there. His feet were planted firmly, he didn’t speak, and perhaps most hurtful of all, he made no move to stop Crowley going.

The demon turned back sharply, quickening his pace and making sure his saunter betrayed no sign of distress.

“After everything you said,” Crowley growled to himself. He let his anger boil, propelling him forward, trying to decide where to go now that his constant destination had turned him away.

~*~

Aziraphale watched him walk away through mounting tears. He’d done what he had to, and he was miserable. All he wanted was to run to the stars and be safe with the one he loved.

But he _had_ to stop the war. Humanity didn’t _need_ to be destroyed, everyone didn’t _need_ to fight until there was nothing left but brimstone. He had power yet, and no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t waste it.

He had to fight.

He watched Crowley go, and all at once he was alone. An angel in an empty bandstand, without his flaming sword, without his friend, determined to face down heaven and hell alone.

“What have I done?” he whispered to himself.

**THE END OF THE WORLD THAT WASN’T—Slightly Afterwards**

An averted Armageddon and an unparalleled dinner at the Ritz later, and they were finally home. Anyplace they shared was home, in a way, but tonight Crowley’s flat was the shortest walk.

Crowley sank down onto the sofa, magicking a bottle of wine open and into a pair of crystal glasses. All the flash bastard energy he could muster was poured into a cocked eyebrow and knee slung indecorously over the arm of the couch. His wine dangled precariously from his fingers.

“We’ve already had champagne!” the angel protested.

“We have had a _day_,” Crowley said, tugging him onto the sofa beside him. “_Drink_.”

He handed over the second glass, and Aziraphale obliged.

“You know,” mused Crowley, “I’m _tired_. We’re not even supposed to get tired, you and me.”

“You could always sleep,” Aziraphale offered. The demon was a bigger fan of the practice than himself.

“Nah,” Crowley growled, tossing his arm around the angel’s shoulders. “I’ve got a friend over.”

Aziraphale broke into a glittering smile, and Crowley’s chest tightened in the customary place.

“Have you got any idea what you’re like?” he asked him.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, _look_ at you,” he scolded. “You smile, the world lights up. Hardly fair.”

Aziraphale smiled again, infuriatingly. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And to think…” he broke off, taking a steadying sip of his wine.

“To think what, my dear?”

Crowley gave his head a small shake, eyes lost behind his sunglasses. “6000 years, and it all could have been over.” He snapped his fingers for added effect. “Just like that.”

Aziraphale swallowed. Crowley didn’t mean the end of the world; they’d already fully exhausted that topic. No, he meant the end of _them_.

Aziraphale’s millennia on earth had been a constant push and pull, an eternal series of choices between his duty and his demon. And when it all came down to it, at the end of the line, he’d somehow managed to choose wrong.

“I didn’t mean what I said, you know,” he said quietly. “At the bandstand.”

“Which part?” Crowley asked, arching a brow. He said it carelessly, but seeing as Crowley cared about everything with every fiber of his being, it was less than convincing.

“Any of it. All of it.” He placed a firm hand on Crowley’s arm, praying it was enough. “I’ve been in love with you for centuries, my dear. You’re the first thing in my heart. And when you asked me to go to the stars, I felt the same. It was just…I was afraid. Of heaven, of the end of the world and I…I chose wrong. I’m so sorry, Crowley.”

Crowley frowned at him. “But you were _right_, in the end. You saved the world.”

“_We_ saved the world. I couldn’t have done any of it without you, and still I…I was willing to push you away.” Aziraphale sighed deeply. “I _never_ want you away.”

“You haven’t got to say sorry, angel, really. You were trying to do the good thing.”

“The good thing wasn’t the right thing,” Aziraphale insisted, looking Crowley in the eye. The demon’s fingers wandered over to him.

“And the right thing was?” he asked.

“You, Crowley. It’s always been you.” Aziraphale placed a gentle kiss on Crowley’s neck, which made him hiss and his heart rate rise. It would have taken every last demon in hell and a hose full of Holy Water to drag Crowley away from him in this moment, and possibly more.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he whispered.

“Blessed,” corrected the angel out of habit.

“Yeah,” Crowley muttered, lifting his hand to Aziraphale’s face and tracing a thumb along his jaw. “Aren’t I just.”

He kissed him gently, as though for the simple privilege of sharing each other’s air. Aziraphale wrapped an arm around Crowley’s back and held him tight against his chest. Crowley wanted to die.

“I love you, angel,” he said against his lips.

“And I love you. But more importantly,” Aziraphale added, suddenly serious.

“What’s more important than _that_?”

The angel’s eyes twinkled. “I _do_ like you.”

Crowley grinned, tugging him close. “You _do_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Writing "It's Late" was so fun, I came back for more! ^_^ If you liked this one, here's the link to my other Good Omens fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19421608


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